First-Year Student Journals : Chameka : Journal 7

26 January 2003

The new semester has begun and we have already made it through a whole week of school. I am very excited about my classes this semester because I changed my major. It is so funny how you can be so sure what you want to major in when you first come to school and go in a totally different direction once you get into the whole swing of things.

It is my second semester here and it seems as if I have been here a lifetime. It is amazing to see how easily I became acquainted with campus and all of the terminology that you have to know in order to find all of the buildings. There are so many buildings and I am not going to say that I know all of them, but I have learned plenty enough. When I first got here, I thought that I was going to have to carry my map around with me all of the time, but I was able to remember most of the buildings very quickly. Every building is known by only three letters so when you ask someone where a building is it would be good to know the abbreviation because most students don’t call the buildings by their whole names. If you just walk around and listen it seems as if we are talking in code, but in actuality we are only identifying our surroundings.

This semester I am taking an Applied Learning Class for which I am required to do 15 hours of community service. To fulfill my requirements I am working with the HOSTS program at Metz Elementary School. I will be working with elementary children and helping them to learn to read and to also increase their reading skills. I was very excited when I found out about this program and what its motive was, and I jumped at the chance to be able to help children do something that I love doing myself. I have always loved to read and to know that I could help to teach someone else to read really makes me feel good. Another good thing that will come out of this experience is classroom experience. Since I am majoring in early childhood education this will help me to gain experience in the field that I plan to pursue.

As a freshman I know that I have really matured, not to say that I was not mature when I came to school. I now try to rely less on the help of others and I have also learned a lot about time management. In college one of the most important things that you can learn is the importance of managing your time. There is always enough time to do everything that you want to, but you have to know how to schedule things in a manner in which you can fit all of the things that you want to do in a certain time period. Last semester I had no type of scheduling at all and I can truly tell the difference in this semester since I try to keep a calendar with all of my important dates and times. I also found that it is good to make little signs to remind me of dates because I know that I can be kind of forgetful at times.

I have been kind of slow about responding to the e-mail messages I was sent, but I promise if you sent me a message I will respond. I am really trying to get back into the swing of this whole school thing, but I do have all of the e-mails and I will do my best to get back with you as soon as time allows.



	Chameka \| Profile \| Favorites \| Journal 7 8 9 Fall 2002 \| Home
	26 January 2003 The new semester has begun and we have already made it through a whole week of school. I am very excited about my classes this semester because I changed my major. It is so funny how you can be so sure what you want to major in when you first come to school and go in a totally different direction once you get into the whole swing of things. It is my second semester here and it seems as if I have been here a lifetime. It is amazing to see how easily I became acquainted with campus and all of the terminology that you have to know in order to find all of the buildings. There are so many buildings and I am not going to say that I know all of them, but I have learned plenty enough. When I first got here, I thought that I was going to have to carry my map around with me all of the time, but I was able to remember most of the buildings very quickly. Every building is known by only three letters so when you ask someone where a building is it would be good to know the abbreviation because most students don’t call the buildings by their whole names. If you just walk around and listen it seems as if we are talking in code, but in actuality we are only identifying our surroundings. This semester I am taking an Applied Learning Class for which I am required to do 15 hours of community service. To fulfill my requirements I am working with the HOSTS program at Metz Elementary School. I will be working with elementary children and helping them to learn to read and to also increase their reading skills. I was very excited when I found out about this program and what its motive was, and I jumped at the chance to be able to help children do something that I love doing myself. I have always loved to read and to know that I could help to teach someone else to read really makes me feel good. Another good thing that will come out of this experience is classroom experience. Since I am majoring in early childhood education this will help me to gain experience in the field that I plan to pursue. As a freshman I know that I have really matured, not to say that I was not mature when I came to school. I now try to rely less on the help of others and I have also learned a lot about time management. In college one of the most important things that you can learn is the importance of managing your time. There is always enough time to do everything that you want to, but you have to know how to schedule things in a manner in which you can fit all of the things that you want to do in a certain time period. Last semester I had no type of scheduling at all and I can truly tell the difference in this semester since I try to keep a calendar with all of my important dates and times. I also found that it is good to make little signs to remind me of dates because I know that I can be kind of forgetful at times. I have been kind of slow about responding to the e-mail messages I was sent, but I promise if you sent me a message I will respond. I am really trying to get back into the swing of this whole school thing, but I do have all of the e-mails and I will do my best to get back with you as soon as time allows.